


the beauty and the mess

by batyatoon



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Resurrection, Character Study, Daddy Issues, Gen, Missing Scene, everything's funny until it isn't, most of Vox Machina get nonspeaking cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-11 14:43:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15317736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyatoon/pseuds/batyatoon
Summary: A long day at Whitestone Castle, waiting for Scanlan to wake up or for his friends to come back.





	the beauty and the mess

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains spoilers through episode 85 of Critical Role Campaign #1. Please do not post anything in the comments that might be spoilery for later episodes.

* * *

_ they disappoint, they disappear, they die but they don’t  
_ -Stephen Sondheim, “No More”

  _ ain’t that what you want them to know? _  
_ all they get of you is what they get out of the show _  
-Chris Thile, “The Beauty and the Mess”

* * *

 

Okay, so nine hours ago it was funny.

Of course she was still drunk then, and exhausted, and giddy with delayed reaction to all the … everything, and seeing it for the first time sent her into howls of laughter. Scanlan Shorthalt in a frilly nightgown, sprawled across a bed with his wrists tied to the bedpost, liberally splattered with something white and viscous -- oh, that was a sight, that was a _story_. She was still laughing when she staggered downstairs to scrounge something to eat; when she made her way back up here, to watch over him like she said she would, the little tableau was still ridiculous enough to make her start wheezing all over again.

And, mercifully, ridiculous enough to make her almost forget that _other_ tableau, the one in the temple last night: Scanlan Shorthalt laid out on the Raven Queen’s altar, lifeless and cold, forever beyond all possible ridicule.

Kaylie presses her knuckles into her eyes and groans; the drink is slowly wearing off, and the returning memory is worse than a hangover. Gods, why the _fuck_ did that bloody half-elf have to sober her up?  She'd _needed_ that drunk. She’d meant to play like she did the day they met, a laughing challenge, _get your ass up here and show me you can do better, old man_.  But there was no way she could do that sober, so instead she had to set her face like a mask and keep it turned so she wouldn't wet the fucking bow --

“Because you have to, right?” she says aloud, and raises her head. “Doesn't matter how you feel, you keep the show going, that's all that fucking matters. The only thing. Right?”

He doesn't answer, of course, because why start now.

\-----

It’s a long day, waiting for the party to come back, and there’s not much to do.  Kaylie rummages through her pack, checks her supplies, counts her coin; goes over her violin and bow with a soft cloth, meticulously polishing away every stray speck of dust and rosin; mends a fraying hem on her jerkin; finds a file and scrapes away a crusted splotch of dried something on the heel of one of her boots, mud or blood or shit or spilled food.  She’s not sure how it got there, and doesn’t much care.

The asshole doesn’t wake up.

About three hours in, a couple of human women in the livery of the castle servants come in to check on him.  She pretends to be asleep in her seat, watching them through slitted eyelids in case anything goes sideways. So far as she can tell, they’re entirely unsurprised at the scene, and also entirely disinclined to laugh at it.  They’re quiet and businesslike, lifting and turning the limp body, undoing the bonds around his wrists, gently massaging the skin and muscle underneath before knotting the scarves in place again. They’ve clearly been given careful instructions, and those instructions just as clearly don’t involve cleaning him up or leaving his hands free.

None of it appears to disturb his sleep; he’s still unconscious when the nurses leave.  She imagines briefly what his expression would have been like if he woke up while they were ministering to him, and decides it’s probably just as well he didn’t.  Really she kind of wants it to be just her in the room when he wakes. Sure, that’ll mean his friends don’t get to see his face, but eh, life’s tough all over.

“And it’s their own lookout,” she says as she stands up to stretch, arching her shoulders and pressing her hands flat against the small of her back.  “Shouldna left if they wanted to see what happened, right? If you care what’s going on, you stick around.” And, with a touch of added venom, “Like _you_ would know.”

Silence.

“Ugh, and he’s still out like a candle,” she sighs in disgust, and puts one boot up on the stool to stretch her leg. “You’re the fucking worst, you know that? Just the worst.”

He doesn’t protest. He doesn’t agree, either, which she thinks might actually be his likelier response if he were awake.

“Don’t give me that face,” she mutters half-heartedly, and switches legs.

Why is she even still here? She’s done her part to bring him back, and they’re looking after him just fine, and it’s not like he’s the one who asked her to come. She could be gone from here before he ever stirs an eyelid. It’s probably not too late to track down Dr. Dranzel and the rest of the troupe; they can’t have gone far, and won’t have had time to replace her yet.

On the other hand, if she waits for the party to come back, they can use whatever magic it was that brought her here to send her back to Kymal. And by that time he’s sure to be --

Ah, whatever, if he’s not awake by then she’ll see.

\-----

By the time the sunlight from the window begins thickening to the orange-gold of sunset, she’s started finding it hard to look at him.

Well, and what’s to see that she hasn’t already tired herself out with seeing? Nothing’s changed since this morning, has it?  It’s not like she’s _afraid_ to look again or anything, and to prove it she lifts her head and stares directly at him.

And of course nothing’s changed, but she makes herself keep looking.

He looks so little in the human-sized bed; he's lying so still. His slack face, without the charming, obnoxious, infuriating personality that usually lives in it, looks disquietingly … older.  No, younger. No, that's not right either. _Vulnerable_ is the word, maybe, or _naked_.

And wasn't that enough for them, she thinks in a burst of bitter anger, without making a fucking farce of him in the bargain? Setting up this scene like some bawdy two-copper puppet theater, something for the audience to hoot and throw peanut shells at when the curtain goes up. That's what he's good for, isn’t it, just a funny little doll to dress up and pose for a fucking joke --

Doesn’t the bastard deserve it though? Sure the joke's worn a little thin for her by now, sitting here staring at it for hours on end, but it should still be good for a laugh to see his face when he wakes up.  Gods know he's made fools of any number of other people. Including, if surely not beginning with, her mother Sibyl.

“So serves you fucking right, doesn't it.” Her hands are gripping each other in her lap, tense and cold, like they know something she doesn’t. “Not like anybody owes you any better. 'S for damn sure _I_ don't.”

Silence.

She looks away again, with a sharp snort ( _not_ a sniff, she’s very clear on the difference).  “That’s right. So you can shut up.”

\-----

Dusk and the party’s not back yet, and the liveried women come in again.  Kaylie has to leave the room -- well, no she doesn’t, she doesn’t _have_ to do anything, it’s just that she really doesn’t feel like sitting through another round of boring nurse shit.  And the cold hollow in the pit of her stomach has nothing to do with the prospect of watching their hands flop him around like a rag doll, it’s because she’s getting hungry and hasn’t had a drink in hours.

So it’s down to the kitchens to scavenge a meal from the remains of dinner: half a loaf of bread, a few thick slices off the end of a cold roast, a hunk of crumbly cheese, a handful of pickled onions.  She wraps up the lot in a linen napkin, and finds a tall bottle of something that smells a little like apples and a lot more like pleasant dreams. She could do with some pleasant dreams, she rather thinks.

They’ve cleared out of the room by the time she gets back with her haul, leaving only him in the bed. It’s entirely dark outside by now, but someone’s built up the fire in here and lit some candles, so there's plenty of light to see by.

She spreads her repast on a low chest of drawers at the foot of the bed (one of the few clean surfaces in the room) and pulls up her stool, and has just started in when a polite knock sounds at the open door.

“You're Kaylie, yes?” says the knocker -- it’s another human woman, but dressed much fancier than the earlier visitors and, despite the knock, standing like she owns the place. Her next words confirm the impression: “I'm Lady Cassandra de Rolo. I believe you've met my brother Percival?”

Kaylie props one foot on the edge of the chest and rests her elbow on her knee, looking up at the newcomer just slightly longer than might be entirely courteous.  “Think so, aye,” she says finally. “The white-haired one, with the …” She gestures, pointing one finger in imitation of the shape of his weird weapon. “... noisemakers?”

Lady Cassandra’s mouth quirks in amusement.  “Yes, that’s him. He’s a friend of your, ah … your father, I understand.” And she glances at the bed, and away.

“Oh aye,” says Kaylie with a hard bright grin, and tosses a pickled onion into her mouth.  And, while chewing, adds “Takes a friend to come up with a prank like this, doesn’t it.”

The lady eyes the shambles of the room with an expression more of distaste than of amusement, but Kaylie’s pretty sure there’s some amusement in her voice -- along with the distaste, and maybe a touch of resignation -- when she sighs “Oh yes. Definitely my brother’s work.”

She shrugs, breaks off a lump of cheese, bites into it.

Cassandra studies her for a moment.  “I just wanted to check how you were doing in here. Are they looking out for you all right? Do you need anything?”

It’s an effort to keep from snarling, and she maybe doesn’t give it quite enough effort.  “I’m _fine_.”

Without exactly looking at the bound figure on the bed, she tips her head in his direction. “Does _he_ need anything?”

“Some better friends,” Kaylie mutters savagely.  And adds, with a mocking performer’s bow from her seat and with all the acid she can pour into it: “Saving your brother’s reverence, I’m sure.”

The sound Cassandra makes is just a little too delicate to be called a snort.  “Reverence and Percival are two concepts that don’t go together. Don’t worry about it.”

Kaylie deliberately crunches another pickled onion, and doesn’t say a word.

\-----

So yeah, it wears thin; it gets old.

But the moment it completely stops being funny to her is when he says _Kaylie, would you excuse us a minute?_

It's not that he's asking her to leave the room. It's not even that there's too much control in his voice, an almost frightening degree of control in comparison to how weak and unsteady his voice is, struggling to hide a much stronger emotion than she would have expected. It's that she can see what emotion it is, behind his eyes, and it isn't embarrassment or outrage: it's despair, the wreckage of every hope.

“Aye,” she says, working hard in turn to keep her tone casual, “but at the very least --"

His hands are cold against hers as she unties the knots on his wrists. She can't look at his face, and she can feel him being unable to look at hers. And for a single burning instant she hates them all, every single one of the big folk in the room, for doing this to him -- yes, and Pike too, who could have stopped them and didn't.

It’s all gone wrong, and there’s nothing she can do but keep the show going.

“Don’t take too long,” she says lightly to the room at large, and then levels a finger at her father. “I’ve a mind to speak to _you_ in a minute.”

She will not, she vows to herself, she will _not_ draw a blade on any of the big folk if they laugh at that -- go ahead, laugh at the funny little gnome girl, isn’t it cute how angry she is.  It helps that they don’t, though; it lets her respond with a breezy “sure” to Vex’s thanks, and push through the crowd of them without punching anyone.

Outside of the room she can breathe again, in huge scalding gulps as though the air is on fire. And she can stand just against the wall outside the line of sight from the doorway and listen, because there's no way she could walk away at this point, and she can concentrate hard on not making a single sound no matter what she hears.

Which, well. What she hears is a hell of a lot of bullshit, with hard sharp splinters of truth buried in it like caltrops. From a few of them, but she's only listening for his.

_I don’t have… I don’t have many things that I care about._

_I should’ve just been with her in the first place. Probably just scared to._

_I don’t have anyone. I have to take care of myself. That’s all._

_Well, that’s just it. I’m a really good liar._

She doesn’t want to be hearing the naked pain in his voice, and far more she doesn’t want to be hearing the hurt and the pleading in the others’ voices.  She wants to storm back in, grab him by the front of the smeared nightgown and shake him and hiss _you asshole, this is **not** what it sounds like when people don’t fucking care about you, ask me how I know_.  She wants to run, abandon her pack and violin along with the burden of everything else in that room, just start running and not stop until dark.  She doesn’t do either.

The thing is: she understands exactly why he’s lying to himself, and to his friends, about how useless he is and how none of them care about him.  It’s not because they humiliated him, it’s not even because they brought her here to see him dead.

It’s because he’s working himself up to leave them, and he doesn’t want to believe that he’s about to leave people who love him.

Especially not for some miserable lying shit of a girl who's done everything she can to make him believe she despises him, yes, Mister Lord Percival Fuckface Von Sonofabitch de Rolo got that one dead to rights, damn his guts.

She can't even pretend to herself that he doesn’t really mean it. She's not that good a liar. Even her father isn't that good a liar.

So she stays where she is, and steels herself against de Rolo’s voice -- furious, bitter, scraped raw with loss, hurling those shards of truth with reckless savagery -- and refuses to move a muscle, not even to wipe her streaming eyes.  Until the fucker comes storming out and sees her there, and something in his face cracks at the sight of hers, and almost too late she realizes that he’s about to try to _hug_ her.

With the unthinking ease of long practice dealing with men twice her size, she knocks his hands aside and ducks under his arm in the same movement.  And once she’s moving, she keeps going, because this feels inevitable now: there are only two ways this can go from here, and her part is the same either way.

Into the abruptly silent room, past the stone-still figures standing around the bed, across the sticky floor, to the corner by her stool to scoop up her things.  It’s even harder than before to turn and meet her father’s eyes, but she doesn’t let herself hesitate; it’s going to be impossible to speak without hoarseness, and she doesn’t try.

“So, you coming?”

He looks back at her for a long moment before dropping his gaze, and the same husky note is in his voice.  “Yeah.”

She doesn’t glance at Pike in the corner, or at any of the others. She can’t help seeing one twin’s mouth drop open in stunned shock, or the other turning away and burying his face wretchedly in one hand, but the wrung-out look on her father’s face is some close cousin to peace, and she keeps her eyes on that.

“Grab your things,” she manages through the thickness in her throat. “Be waiting for you downstairs.”

This time she doesn’t listen outside the door.

\-----

When he comes down, he’s back in street clothes and his regular armor, carrying a pack; he’s clean, and his hair is damp, as though hurriedly rinsed through and toweled off.  If his eyes are damp too, and maybe a little reddened, she doesn’t need to take any notice of that.

The entry hall is large enough that he doesn’t immediately see her, glancing around first idly and then sharply.  She can see the moment when the fear strikes him, that she’s already gone on without him.

“Oi, Shorthalt,” she says, not loud but pitched to carry.


End file.
